Plutarch's Morals
other children but even to her favourite playthings, and so invited them
as it were to her table in kindliness of heart, and gave them a share of
her good things, and provided the best entertainment for those that
pleased her.
Sec. III. But I see no reason, my dear wife, why these and similar traits
in her character, that gave us delight in her lifetime, should now,
when recalled to the memory, grieve and trouble us. Though, on the other
hand, I fear that if we cease to grieve we may also cease to remember
her, like Clymene, who says in the Play[193]--
"I hate the supple bow of cornel-wood,
And would put down athletics,"
because she ever avoided and trembled at anything that reminded her of
her son, for it brought grief with it, and it is natural to avoid
everything that gives us pain. But as she gave us the greatest pleasure
in embracing her and even in seeing and hearing her, so ought her memory
living and dwelling with us to give us more, aye, many times more, joy
than grief, since those arguments that we have often used to others
ought to be profitable to us in the present conjuncture, nor should we
sit down and rail against fortune, opposing to those joys many more
griefs.
Sec. IV. Those who were present at the funeral tell me with evident
surprise that you put on no mourning, and that you bedizened up neither
yourself nor your maids with the trappings of woe, and that there was no
ostentatious expenditure of money at the funeral, but that everything
was done orderly and silently in the presence of our relations. I am not
myself surprised that you, who never made a display either at the
theatre or on any other public occasion, and thought extravagance
useless even in the case of pleasure, should have been frugal in your
grief. For not only ought the chaste woman to remain uncorrupt in
Bacchanalian revels,[194] but she ought to consider her self-control not
a whit less necessary in the surges of sorrow and emotion of grief,
contending not (as most people think) against natural affection, but
against the extravagant wishes of the soul. For we are indulgent to
natural affection in the regret, and honour, and memory that it pays to
the dead: but the insatiable desire for a passionate display of
funeral grief, coming to the climax in coronachs and beatings of the
breast, is not less unseemly than intemperance in pleasure and is
unreasonably[195] forgiven only because pain and grief instead of
delight are elements in the unseemly exhibition. For what is more
unreasonable than to curtail excessive laughter or any other
demonstration of joy, and to allow a free vent to copious lamentation
and wailing that come from the same source? And how unreasonable is it,
as some husbands do, to quarrel with their wives about perfume and
purple robes, while they allow them to shear their heads in mourning,
and to dress in black, and to sit in idle grief, and to lie down in
weariness! And what is worst of all, how unreasonable is it for husbands
to interfere if their wives chastise the domestics and maids
immoderately or without sufficient cause, yet allow them to ill-treat
themselves cruelly in cases and conjunctures that require repose and
kindness!
Sec. V. But between us, my dear wife, there never was any occasion for such
a contest, nor do I think there ever will be. For as to your economy in
dress and simple way of living, there is no philosopher with whom you
are acquainted whom you did not amaze, nor is there any citizen who has
not observed[196] how plainly you dressed at sacred rites, and
sacrifices, and theatres. You have also already on similar painful
occasions exhibited great fortitude, as when you lost your eldest son,
and again when our handsome Chaeron died. For when I was informed of his
death, I well remember some guests from the sea were coming home with me
to my house as well as some others, but when they saw the great quiet
and tranquillity of the household, they thought, as they afterwards told
some other people, that no such disaster had really happened, but that
the news was untrue. So well had you ordered everything in the house, at
a time when there would have been great excuse for disorder. And yet you
had suckled that son, though your breast had had to be lanced owing to a
contusion. This was noble conduct and showed your great natural
affection.
Sec. VI. But most mothers we see, when their children are brought to them
clean and tidy, take them into their hands as playthings, and when they
die burst out into idle and unthankful grief, not so much out of
affection--for affection is thoughtful and noble--but a great yearning
for vain glory[197] mixed with a little natural affection makes their
grief fierce and vehement and hard to appease. And this does not seem to
have escaped AEsop's notice, for he says that when Zeus assigned their
honours to various gods, Grief also claimed his. And Zeus granted his
wish, with this limitation that only those who chose and wished need pay
him honour.[198] It is thus with grief at the outset, everyone welcomes
it at first, but after it has got by process of time settled, and become
an inmate of the house, it is with difficulty dislodged again, however
much people may wish to dislodge it. Wherefore we ought to keep it out
of doors, and not let it approach the garrison by wearing mourning or
shearing the hair, or by any similar outward sign of sorrow. For these
things occurring daily and being importunate make the mind little, and
narrow, and unsocial, and harsh, and timid, so that, being besieged and
taken in hand by grief, it can no longer laugh, and shuns daylight, and
avoids society. This evil will be followed by neglect of the body, and
dislike to anointing and the bath and the other usual modes of life:
whereas the very opposite ought to be the case, for the mind ill at ease
especially requires that the body should be in a sound and healthy
condition. For much of grief is blunted and relaxed when the body is
permeated by calm, like the sea in fine weather. But if the body get
into a dry and parched condition from a low diet, and gives no proper
nutriment to the soul, but only feeds it with sorrow and grief, as it
were with bitter and injurious exhalations, it cannot easily recover its
tone however people may wish it should. Such is the state of the soul
that has been so ill-treated.
Sec. VII. Moreover, I should not hesitate to assert[199] that the most
formidable peril in connection with this is "the visits of bad
women,"[200] and their chatter, and joint lamentation, all which things
fan the fire of sorrow and aggravate it, and suffer it not to be
extinguished either by others or by itself. I am not ignorant what a
time of it you had lately, when you went to the aid of Theon's sister,
and fought against the women who came on a visit of condolence and
rushed up with lamentation and wailing, adding fuel as it were to her
fire of grief in their simplicity. For when people see their friends'
houses on fire they put it out as quickly and energetically as they can,
but when their souls are on fire they themselves bring fuel. And if
anybody has anything the matter with his eyes they will not let him put
his hands to them, however much he wish, nor do they themselves touch
the inflamed part; but a person in grief sits down and gives himself up
to every chance comer, like a river [that all make use of], to stir up
and aggravate the sore, so that from a little tickling and discomfort it
grows into a great and terrible disease. However, as to all this I know
you will be on your guard.
Sec. VIII. Try also often to carry yourself back in memory to that time
when, this little girl not having been then born, we had nothing to
charge Fortune with, and to compare that time and this together, as if
our circumstances had gone back to what they were then. Otherwise, my
dear wife, we shall seem discontented at the birth of our little
daughter, if we consider our position before her birth as more perfect.
But we ought not to erase from our memory the two years of her life, but
to consider them as a time of pleasure giving us gratification and
enjoyment, and not to deem the shortness of the blessing as a great
evil, nor to be unthankful for what was given us, because Fortune did
not give us a longer tenure as we wished. For ever to be careful what we
say about the gods, and to be cheerful and not rail against Fortune,
brings a sweet and goodly profit; and he who in such conjunctures as
ours mostly tries to remember his blessings, and turns and diverts his
mind from the dark and disturbing things in life to the bright and
radiant, either altogether extinguishes his grief or makes it small and
dim from a comparison with his comforts. For as perfume gives pleasure
to the nose, and is a remedy against disagreeable smells, so the
remembrance of past happiness in present trouble gives all the relief
they require to those who do not shut out of their memory the blessings
of the past, or always and everywhere rail against Fortune. And this
certainly ought not to be our case, that we should slander all our past
life because, like a book, it has one erasure in it, when all the other
pages have been bright and clean.
Sec. IX. You have often heard that happiness consists in right calculations
resulting in a healthy state of mind, and that the changes which Fortune
brings about need not upset it, and introduce confusion into our life.
But if we too must, like most people, be governed by external events,
and make an inventory of the dealings of Fortune, and constitute other
people the judges of our felicity, do not now regard the tears and
lamentations of those who visit you, which by a faulty custom are
lavished on everybody, but consider rather how happy you are still
esteemed by them for your family, your house, and life. For it would be
monstrous, if others would gladly prefer your destiny to theirs, even
taking into account our present sorrow, that you should rail against and
be impatient at our present lot, and in consequence of our bitter grief
not reflect how much comfort is still left to us. But like those who
quote imperfect verses of Homer[201] and neglect the finest passages of
his writings, to enumerate and complain of the trials of life, while you
pay no attention to its blessings, is to resemble those stingy misers,
who heap up riches and make no use of them when they have them, but
lament and are impatient if they are lost. And if you grieve over her
dying unmarried and childless, you can comfort yourself with the thought
that you have had both those advantages. For they should not be reckoned
as great blessings in the case of those who do not enjoy them, and small
blessings in the case of those who do. And that she has gone to a place
where she is out of pain ought not to pain us, for what evil can we
mourn for on her account if her pains are over? For even the loss of
important things does not grieve us when we have no need of them. But it
was only little things that your Timoxena was deprived of, little things
only she knew, and in little things only did she rejoice; and how can
one be said to be deprived of things of which one had no conception, nor
experience, nor even desire for?
Sec. X. As to what you hear from some people, who get many to credit their
notion, that the dead suffer no evil or pain, I know that you are
prevented from believing that by the tradition of our fathers and by the
mystic symbols of the mysteries of Dionysus, for we are both initiated.
Consider then that the soul, being incorruptible, is in the same
condition after death as birds that have been caught. For if it has been
a long time in the body, and during this mortal life has become tame by
many affairs and long habit, it swoops down again and a second time